A judge in Colorado on Friday modified the five-year prison sentence for a paramedic who was convicted in the death of Elijah McClain to four years’ probation.
McClain was given a lethal dose of ketamine in 2019 after a confrontation with police.
Peter Cichuniec was sentenced earlier this year after he was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of the Black pedestrian. Cichuniec was also found guilty of second-degree assault.
Police confronted McClain, 23, in Aurora on Aug. 24, 2019, after someone reported a suspicious person wearing a ski mask — which McClain’s family said he regularly wore because of a blood condition that made him feel cold.
Officers tackled McClain, and paramedics injected him with ketamine. After he was injected, McClain had no pulse in the ambulance, and he went into cardiac arrest and died six days later.
A second paramedic, Jeremy Cooper, was also found guilty of criminally negligent homicide. He was sentenced in April to four years’ probation for his role in McClain’s death.
Colorado’s attorney general said he was disappointed that the judge had modified Cichuniec’s sentence to probation.
“After considering the evidence, a statewide grand jury indicted Cichuniec and a jury of his peers found him guilty of his criminal acts that led to the death of Elijah McClain,” Attorney General Philip Weiser said in a statement Friday. “We are disappointed the court reduced his sentence today, but we respect the court’s decision.”
When Cichuniec was sentenced March 1, Sheneen McClain, Elijah’s mother, said that the paramedic should be held responsible for her son’s death. She left the courthouse after he was sentenced to five years in prison with her fist in the air.
“I’m not OK. I never will be,” she said then, adding that the paramedics “had the opportunity to save him.”
A court filing against modifying the sentence indicated McClain’s mother was against the move.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
